Automated mail sorting systems that are employed to facilitate the delivery of mail pieces, such as letters, postcards, and other parcels, typically scan each mail piece and utilize optical character recognition (OCR) hardware and software to read the destination mailing address indicated on the mail piece. Such systems typically sort mail pieces down to the level of the individual mail carrier at the local post office. The individual mail carrier typically then manually “cases” the mail in the carrier's route by reading the destination mailing address on a mail piece and placing the mail piece into a “case” having many pockets in an order consistent with the order or “walk sequence” of the delivery stops, or stations, on the carrier's route.
What typically prevents automated mail sorting from being performed down to the level of the carrier walk sequence is that the addresses on some mail pieces simply cannot be read using OCR. Thus, the mail carrier must either read and case such mail pieces manually, or must enter the addresses of such mail pieces into the sorting machine and associate the address entered with its associated mail piece, whereupon it may be cased automatically. Manually casing mail is labor intensive, often taking up to half of a mail carrier's work day. An automated mail sorting system that would sort mail down to the level of the carrier walk sequence while minimizing the amount of manual casing or data entry required would therefore be advantageous.